Stunned Scientists

March 20, 2002

https://www.smartertimes.com/718/stunned-scientists

The top of the front page of today's New York Times carries four photographs of an Antarctic ice shelf that appears to have broken up. "The speed of the breakup stunned scientists," the Times reports on its front page. Inside, the Times has a news article that reports, "researchers said this was the first time in thousands of years that this part of Antarctica -- the east coast of its arm-shaped peninsula -- had seen so much ice erode and temperatures rise so much."

The Times reports that "many experts said it was getting harder to find any other explanation" of the ice-shelf breakup other than the buildup of greenhouse gas emissions "that scientists believe are warming the planet."

Well, just to put the matter in context, have a look at John Muir's 1879 essay "The Discovery of Glacier Bay."

Muir writes: "Glacier Bay is undoubtedly young as yet. Vancouver's chart, made only a century ago, shows no trace of it, though found admirably faithful in general. It seems probable, therefore, that even then the entire bay was occupied by a glacier of which all those described above, great through they are, were only tributaries. Nearly as great a change has taken place in Sum Dum Bay since Vancouver's visit, the main trunk glacier there having receded from eighteen to 25 miles from the line marked on his chart. Charley, who was here when a boy, said that the place had so changed that he hardly recognized it, so many new islands had been born in the meantime and so much ice had vanished. As we have seen, this Icy Bay is being still farther extended by the recession of the glaciers. That this whole system of fiords and channels was added to the domain of the sea by glacial action is to my mind certain."

Maybe it was greenhouse gas emissions back in 1879 that caused the creation of Glacier Bay in Alaska. After all, the antipollution rules were a lot less strict then than they are now. And maybe the developments in Antarctica are indeed unprecedented and worthy of top-of-the-front-page treatment by the New York Times. It certainly has been a warm winter here in New York. But a bit more skepticism and historical perspective is probably in order here.

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